Gone
by Dahkoro5050
Summary: When someone you love is gone, there's an emptiness left in their wake. Raven experiences this first hand as her best friend and secret love are taken from her, or so she thinks. BBRae Oneshot. Read and review!


This is my first fanfic, so let me know what you think!

**Disclaimer: Beast Boy rescued Raven in and Beast Boy and Raven are officially a couple, the original show is still going, and I own the Teen Titans. wakes up Awe man! I was daydreaming again wasnt any of my daydreams be true. Just one of them would be great (preferably the third one). Anyways enjoy the story. **

All of the lights were out in Titans Tower, yet only two of its residents lay asleep. A cybernetic man lay on his charging table, charging his mechanical half while his human half slumbered dreamlessly. Meanwhile an overjoyous alien floated above her bed as she dreamed peacefully of anything and everything that had brought her happiness. Raven had never gone to sleep, and instead was busy worrying about the remaining two Titans who were away on assignment.

Nightwing and Changeling, formerly known as Robin and Beast Boy, were currently tracking down the Brotherhood of Evil and its many associates. Ever since the Brotherhood had been freed from their icy prison they had been gathering allies to take down the Titans. Nightwing assigned himself and Changeling to tracking them down and subdue them one by one. Changeling had more experience fighting the Brotherhood than anyone, and this knowledge was proving to be invaluable; while Nightwing felt that he had a score to settle for being captured so easily last time.

Raven had long ago given up denying her attraction towards the tower's resident shape-shifter, but she had yet to reveal her feelings about him to anyone except Starfire who was sworn to secrecy. Ever since Tokyo Garfield (that was what she called him now) had matured into a young man, and if she was being honest with herself, it was all her fault. They had grown closer over the years and while he was still the team jokester he was no longer the immature child he once was. Both Raven and Garfield had self esteem issues, Garfield about his savage appearance and Raven about her demonic heritage. If Raven was feeling down or her emotions were getting to be too much, Garfield would show up on the roof and they would talk for hours about anything and everything. Likewise if he was beating himself up after a nasty "fan" letter or a particularly bad day, she would meet him out on the rocks behind the tower. She always wondered how he knew when she was feeling down, its not like he had empathetic powers that picked up on everyone's emotions like a vacuum cleaner.**  
**

She had a feeling that everyone else knew of her attraction to the green changeling, besides Changeling himself of course. Cyborg would get this knowing look in his eye when he saw them in the commons room playing chess, and she swore she had heard Nightwing comment to Cyborg about their rendezvous on the roof once.

She realized that she probably would not get much sleep that night so she got up to make herself a cup of tea. On her way back to her room she reached out to see if Starfire and Cyborg were still asleep. They were, but something wasn't right, there was someone else in the Tower. She focused in on the stranger while altering her path to go confront them when she realized that it was Nightwing. At first she was relieved, the boys were back and she could finally get a good nights sleep. But then it occurred to her, she only felt one extra person in the tower.

'_Where is Garfield?_' she wondered. She reached Nightwings room and was about to knock when she felt an overwhelming wave of grief. '_That better not mean what I think it means'_ she thought. She knocked on the door, too scared to trust her voice.

"Hey Star-" He began as he opened the door. "Uh, Raven what are you doing here?"

"Where is he?" she whispered, still not trusting her voice. He didn't need to ask who 'he' was, he knew. She felt yet another overwhelming wave of grief and sorrow emit from her leader as his gaze fell to the ground. After a small awkward silence he straightened his posture as he prepared to speak.

"He's, I uh, -well he, um can you go wake up Cy, and I'll get Star. I only want to say this once." he finished with as much confidence as he could muster, but it wasn't very much. Raven was terrified. She quickly ran to Cyborgs room and banged on the door as hard as she could. She wanted him up now. She waited impatiently until he opened the door, rubbing the sleep from his eye.

"What's up Raven?" Then he got a good look at her. Her eyes were teary and her usual stoic expression was gone, replaced with a tight frown that held back a sob. "What's wrong Rae?"

She lurched forward, bringing him into a tight hug and said "Nightwing is back."

"That's a good thing though, isn't it?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"Just Nightwing."

"But what about-"

"Nightwing wouldn't"-sniff-"tell me anything," she replied. "He said he- that he only wanted to say it once." Cyborg noticed all of the light bulbs down the hall had burst, but he didn't think he needed to bring it up. There were more important things to deal with.

'_He's fine, BB is fine_' Cyborg tried to reassure himself, but he knew that he didn't believe it.

When they got to the common room Starfire was already there clutching Silkie with a worried expression on her face.

"Where is he," Raven demanded.

"Yes, I would very much like to know where Friend Changeling is and why you are not there with him." Starfire stated with concern lacing her words.

"It will be better if I start from the beginning." He began cryptically, struggling to keep a brave face. "We were staying in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, planning our next move. Changeling had just left to get us something to eat. We never imagined that we had been followed." His voice cracked and he took a moment to regain his composure. "I was attacked by Madame Rouge and Mallah. They captured me, and I was brought back to their base. When I got there, they had him too. He was hooked up to some wires that gave him shocks every few seconds to keep him from shifting." Cyborg and Raven visibly winced, and Starfire let out a small yelp. "Anyways, I was put in a cell and was forced to- to listen while they tortured him."

"What did they do to him?" Cyborg asked.

"I don't know, but after a while the screams stopped. They came in, told me he was dead, and that I was next if I didn't cooperate," he said grimly. He went on to explain how he had escaped, but by then no one was listening. Starfire had burst into tears, while Raven and Cyborg were lost in their own thoughts.

'_No, my little buddy can't be dead,_' Cyborg thought. '_He's an awesome hero and an even better friend. Who's gonna play videogames with me until ungodly hours of the morning, or argue about what to have for breakfast. I'm never gonna be able to tease him about him and Rav- Oh god if I feel this bad how does Raven feel?_' He turned to look at her but she was gone.

She was in fact out on the shore facing the ocean, sitting right where she would always sit when he would have a bad day, holding back bitter tears as she tried to process everything she knew. '_Why did it have to be him,_' she wondered. '_Of course as soon as I've gained enough confidence to tell him that I love him I find out that he's dead._' It was true, not even two days ago she put a sign on the inside of her door promising herself that when he gets back, her first words to him were going to be "I Love You." '_There's so much I wanted to do, and even more that I'll never get to see again. His smile after he cracks a joke _(which had gotten better over the years)_, the twinkle in his eye when we share our little 'moments', that silly victory dance that was once annoying but was now endearing. How he would never leave me alone when he knew I needed it, and always came back no matter what I said or did._' One thing about her that had changed over the years was that she threatened his health with violence less and less. He had forgiven her for everything she had said and done in one of their talks.

'_I was a real beast to him before we started actually talking, wasn't I,_' she thought. '_And now I'll never be able to make it up to him._'

'_You don't know that for sure,_' a voice in her head stated, who Raven figured to be Knowledge. '_Nightwing never said that he saw his body, he was just told that he was dead._'

'_But Nightwing would never abandon one of us if he knew there was a chance of them still being alive._'

'_And in all the time you've known him Nightwing has never once been wrong?_'

'_You mean Garfield might still be alive?_' another voice spoke, belonging to the emoticlone known as Happy, though she sounded anything but what her name implies.

'_But we all know how rare it is for Nightwing to be wrong, especially when villains are involved._' Timid replied.

'_I think that we should at least give Garfield the benefit of the doubt before we begin mourning him._' Stated Wisdom.

'_How long do you expect us to wait before we mourn the loss of our true love?_' screamed Rage. '_We loved him. I loved him._' she finished quietly.

'_Garfield has always been an instinctual survivor. We can't give up on him, he's still out there. He's got to be.'_ Love said, absolutely positive that Garfield wasn't dead.

'_Well then where is he? We need him now more than ever._' exclaimed Rude.

'_WE need HIM? He needs US!_' Brave shouted. '_You think that if he's alive he'd just be sitting around twiddling his thumbs? If he's alive we need to act, and if not are we going to sit around here arguing or are we gonna do something about it?_'

'_Quiet!_' Raven all but shouted. '_All valid points, but I agree with Brave. I can't sit around feeling sorry for myself while Garfield may still be in danger._' And with that she stood up and teleported herself into the commons room where Starfire was weeping into Nightwing's shoulder. Cyborg was nowhere to be found.

"Raven, are you okay?" Nightwing asked. Starfire stopped crying and looked up to see Raven's tear stained face.

"No, but that doesn't matter anymore. Garfield may still be alive and every second we waste crying is a second the Brotherhood goes unpunished." Raven said as monotone as she could, but anyone who knew her could tell she was devastated by the news Nightwing had delivered.

"Raven, he's gone-" Nightwing began.

"You said they only told you he was gone, but they could have tricked you Nightwing." Raven was shouting by now. "You don't know-"

"They showed me his body!" He was yelling now, too. "There was blood everywhere and the only reason I escaped is because they underestimated my lock picking skills. I'm sorry Raven, I couldn't save him."

Raven was quiet. She no longer cared if the Brotherhood went unpunished, nor she didn't bother being angry at Nightwing for losing him. He was gone. The one person who had brought her out of her shell, who had cared about her more than anyone else, who looked beyond her icy exterior and saw who she really was. A fragile, insecure girl who had more in common with him than you could imagine. But now he was gone, taking all desire to feel with him.

She walked out of the room and wandered the halls of the Tower, struggling to keep the tears from falling. When she finally stopped wandering she found herself at his door. She stared at it for what felt like hours. When she finally went in she felt a wave of his aura flood her senses. For a moment she felt hope. 'Was he somehow alive?' she wondered, until she remembered that he spent most of his time in here sleeping. Of course she would sense his aura most here. She went over to his bunk bed so she could hold on to his aura for as long as possible, when she felt it was much stronger on the top bunk. As she climbed on she remembered that he he once said he preferred to sleep on the top bunk, that it had something to do with his instincts. She never really understood how his instincts worked, it was one of the many things that made up the enigma that is Garfield. 'Was,' she thought solemnly. And with that the dam broke. She curled up into the fetal position let out every tear she had been holding back since he left with Nightwing a few weeks ago. She cried for her reluctance to reveal her feelings, she cried for the brutality of his death. For all the things she wouldn't get to say or do with him, for how lonely she felt now that he was gone. But most of all, she cried for him.

She cried for hours, and she didn't know what time it was when she finally ran out of tears. She sat up and looked around the room to assess the damage, but found that nothing save a few CDs he borrowed from Cyborg was destroyed.

'_We all agreed that your powers would not destroy anything that had belonged to him._' Wisdom explained. '_That you should grieve without worrying about the consequences.'_

'_But where did all of that energy go?_' Raved asked, genuinely curious.

'_Terra's old room._' said Rage. Raven could practically hear the smirk on the emoticlone's face.

She let out a dry chuckle, then lay back down on his bed facing the wall. That was when she noticed something that she didn't see before. It was a note tacked to the wall, and it read:

I know you're probably gonna wanna back out

of that promise you made to yourself, so I'm gonna

remind you future me,

YOU PROMISED TO TELL RAVEN THAT

YOU LOVE HER WHEN YOU GET BACK!

You're probably exhausted but knowing

me you haven't even read this part and have already

gone to tell her. Good luck!

Time froze for Raven. He loved her back! She wasn't surprised, but she definitely had her doubts. He was always around her, and he probably wouldn't have been so persistent with her if there wasn't at least a little bit of affection. There was a small bit of comfort knowing that he loved her back, even if she would never feel his affections again. At least it made her memories they had together that much more special.

Feeling a little better, she opted to checking on how well the rest of the Titans were doing. They were all in the common room, and she felt wave after wave of joy, relief, and happiness. She cut her analysis short and flew down the hall enraged.

"What the hell do they have to celebrate" she growled. This just wasn't her day. She burst through the doors and stopped dead in her tracks, anger forgotten. There he was, explaining his side of the story to the rest of the team.

"Dude, I think I know how they duped us. When I saw you dead and you saw me dead I bet it was Madame R-" his voice faded out as their eyes locked. Her rich amethyst orbs bore into his deep emerald pools, searching for any sign that it wasn't real. Without taking his eyes of of her, he said "Guys, can I have a moment with Raven, please."

The other three left the room without a word, and when the room was emptied of onlookers Raven and Garfield slowly began to walk toward one another, eyes still deadlocked. when they were about an arms length away they rushed forward into a long, passionate kiss. Raven kissed him with confidence she didn't know she had, and Garfield kissed her with a passion she had never felt. When they pulled apart, gasping for air, they both opened their mouths to say the one thing that they had been wanting to say since this whole thing began.

"I love you" they said in perfect unison. Garfield laughed and Raven smirked.

"Let me guess, the first words you promised you would say to me when you got back were 'I love you.'" Raven said with a small smile on her face.

"Yeah, I even left a note by my bed to remind myself in case I forgot."

"I made the same promise, its hanging on my door." He laughed loudly.

"You know that they're probably watching us from the surveillance feed." he said.

"Who cares, they probably knew before we did how we felt." And with that she pulled him into another passionate, loving kiss.

Thank you for reading. Review please!


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